Curious about guys thoughts and experiences on the two. I know the differences. Are Ak's worth buying ? All the cheap parts and canted sights and ways of optic mounting problems ? Just curious on your opinions

Oh boy.....................

If this is an April Fools joke, you have an odd sense of humor. In fact, you might need to rethink what a joke is.

This will go well.

ETA: I love the historical significance of the AK pattern rifles, and they are a blast to shoot. I also think that no collection is complete without at least one.

With that being said, I do have a preference for the AR15 platform.

Get both.

Ar is marksmans rifle.
Ak is a great up close & personal bullet hose.
The Better Depends on your scenario

They both have their strengths and weaknesses.  Just get both.  Variety is fun.

Lol what nonsense

Everyone needs one of each ;) AR-15 accurate and comfortable to shoot and faster on target, however it needs to be cleaned and well lubed often. AK-47, not the greatest sights or accuracy, but it's very simple and reliable. AR-15 is like a 1911, and AK-47 is like a Glock.

Kolashnikov everyday

LOL. This is what I posted in the same thread you made in the ar section.

They have more similarities than differences. They are both intermediate caliber carbines that do very well 300 yards and in and beyond that in the hands of the right person. They are both lightweight and easy to carry all day. They can both be had in a variety of furniture. They can both have weapon lights mounted to them. They can both be used with iron sights. They can both have red dots or magnified optics mounted to them.

So if your question is: "Is an intermediate caliber carbine worth getting?" Then I would say absolutely. We all need or one or 25 in our home. Should that carbine be an ar15 or an ak47/ak74? Honestly, it really doesn't matter. So long as your train with which one you go with.

AK' are just as reliable as an AR.  The stigma of poor quality AK's are because of companies like century and other (mostly american) builders that have gone out of their way to build giant paper weights, cant remember names off the top if my head.  

On the other hand, there was a thread a while back where an slr had a kaboom.  He beat the receiver back into shape and kept on shooting, how is that for reliability.  

Your best option is to get both. I have a Zastava M-70 NPAP and I love it, although I plan on getting an AR or a Tavor in the future

I thought the same thing awhile back. I decided on an wasr. The way I see it, I could get a super reliable rifle for about $600 in a good caliber with readily available mags and ammo. I don't have to worry about staking gas keys or cleaning it as often, the ammos cheaper, mags are cheaper, I don't want to put an optic on it. After about 800 rounds and a little practice I can get the rifle from a low ready, to shooting a target at 25 yards as fast as I can my bead sighted 870.


Rifle shoots about a 2" group with commie surplus ammo. Even at 500 yards that still 15" group, which is small nough to engage a man size target. And at a more useable distance, like 300 yards, I can get accurate shots on men, deer, coyotes, hogs, and pretty much anything else in a caliber with a good grainage and high enough velocity at that distance to put the whoopin on something.


Add on the fact that I hate ar charging handles, I have to move my hand as much on either one of them to manipulate the safety, I can out a folding stock on the wasr, which helps when riding out to shooting spots, and I don't have to worry as much about cleaning it and keeping it lubed means I'm very happy with my ak and I'm not about to change it.

Wow

this ones NEVER been done before..

I second your post.

The A k 74 is what the our troops should but issued. Of course  it will never happen because its not American made. 5.45x39 performs better than .556 .Comparing the ak 47 and m4 is not fair. .22 caliber bullet versus a 30 caliber bullet. 545x39 and 556 is a much better comparison.

The AR does everything better imo but the AK is a blast to shoot.

All of this

Both?

As someone who has had both for many years, and has shot them both extensively, I'll give you my thoughts.

Sights, the AR sights are far superior to the AK sights, just no two ways around it. I can hit a 24" steel plate at 300M with an AK, but it takes some work due to the trigger which is doable, but not that greatest.

Optics, Again, the AR wins hands down with mounting options. Sure you can do it it on an AK, but its not as easy.

Ergonomics. Again, the AR wins for me again. the safety is in a much better place. the Magazine release also. The charging handle is also in a great place. the AK is workable, but I find I need to use gloves if I'm running the AK pretty aggressively, as it tends to tear up hands pretty easy when your pushing for speed.
Having the bolt not lock back on an empty magazine. the required rocking in and up motion to lock in place and having the charging handle on the right side go against the AK.

Magazines. You have to give that to the AK. Their built like a T-72. but their is a price to pay for that.. weight, and the fact that the locking tab tears up mag pouches. I personally have never had issues with the AR mags, but like anything, you need to inspect, maintain and if you have to, replace.

Accuracy. the M4 is suppose to be a 4MOA gun, and it usually is better then that, but I have seen AK's that shoot quite well also. Shitty Russian ammo causes alto of that, and so does the triggers on an AK. I think they both work in the realm of dispatching a man size target out to 200-300 meters in battlefield conditions..

Triggers. The trigger I had for years had horrible slap and would actually be painful to shoot. I recently replaced it with a Tapco G2. I have not shot it yet, so jury is out on how that trigger works.

Durability. I know the prevailing thought is the AK is a winner hands down due to its generous tolerances (which I attribute more to the shitty manufacturing tolerances of the era vs. thought into the the design). But again, if the AR is ran by someone who has been trained and is competent, I have never seen an AR choke and better or worse then an AK.


I always go to an M4 as a go to gun as its what I have spent all of my adult life training and working with. I can run an AK pretty well, and believe one should be intimate with it as there are over 100million of them out their, which means I run a good chance of running into a few.

I know a lot of guys who love them, but that is after they turn them into an Americanized M4, which to me, defeats the purpose of an AK. They were defeinetly designed for low information voter types as seen around the world.
They were a lot funner when they were cheaper, but now that the price of ammo and magazines and guns has gone up to the same level as an AR, I'm not as big a fan and will still spend my time with an AR.

I would tell you, that if you have a good M4 type rifle and all the accessories you need for it and do not have an AK, you should. Every one should have one. So you know how it works and can run one pretty decently. I've never seen a firearms go down in value. And who knows, 20 years from know, it may be worth more then what you paid for it.

Just my $.02

If you're serious about getting the most for youe money then I'd suggest grabbing a chinese MAK-90 and de-banning it. You get the heavier barrel of the AK-47 vs. the lighter barrel of the AKM, the thicker 1.5 mm receiver vs. the 1 mm on the AKM, built in a military factory by a country doing it since 1956. There are quality AK triggers being made these days by several companies as well as various other 922r parts depending on if you're concerned with that.

Some of the detractors of the AK cite bad ergos, crappy optics mounting, lousy iron sight, etc. IMHO if you can't address these issues with minimal effort you're doing something wrong. It's not as simple as slapping something on a factory provided picatinny rail like with an AR, but great options are out there. Don't honestly know what all the bitching is about since pistols have had AK style sights since forever, ergos are mostly a training issue, and an AK set up with a RDS either on a siderail or Ultimak railed gas tube make the AK far more accurate than most give it credit for. Also 7.62 turns cover into mere concealment far better than 5.56.

The jam-o-matic AK you occasionally hear about have more to do with American importers/manufacturers trying to comply with 922r in the cheapest way possible (like welding gas pistons to bolt carrier), sloppy magwell machining, etc. Grab a pre-ban if you have the coin or get a post ban made in a factory that produced AK's for their military and de-ban it.

lol

I got the AK-74 and AR-15 and find the AK to be easier slightly but mag changes and optics are way better with the AR.

I have both rifles set up with red dots and both are equally accurate at 100 yards but I'm moving to the M-1 and M1A as I've now got 20 acres to cover in Hill Country and that really requires a 7.62mm round. AK still makes a good compact trunk gun and AR for a super lightweight option at the farm.

I have three AKs: A Krink SBR in 7,62mm, a Saiga conversion in 7,62mm and  a Krebs '74.

I also have a 12.5" AR, a 16" AR and an 18" AR chambered in 6.5mm Grendel.

I used to have all my AKs tricked out with red dots and lights n shit, but I stripped the tactical goodies off them.

My 12.5" AR has a DBAL-A3 and a T-1 on it. The 16" AR has a TR24 and a AN/PEQ-2A on it. The 18" Grendel has a Leopold 4.5-14 on it.

The bottom line is that I own AKs for the novelty of it, but if I need to flip someone's shit I'll be grabbing one of my suppressed ARs and my NVDs...

ETA - My 16" AR with WML and TR24 is lighter weight than my stripped Krebs '74. I've found that AKs don't really balance well with the front mounted sights and lights.

I don't understand how swapping out the furniture and mounting a RDS 'defeats the purpose'... It does nothing to fundamentally change the operation of the rifle and it isn't like the Russian's themselves haven't been doing it for years as well.

________________________________________________________________________________

That said, I run both and right now run an M4 on practically a daily basis. The reality is both have their pros and cons and everything is a trade off. When weighed like this, neither is significantly better than the other and it comes down to personal preference. For me it's the AK. Your mileage may vary.

I run both, AK is just more fun. They have more character and no ones feels or shoots just like another, the cookie-cutter AR platform just lacks that sort of spice.
Also if AK breaks I can still beat a man to death with it. If AR breaks and I strike a man with it, the rifle will break a second time

This is hilarious. I would have never thought I would see the day when we would be talking about "jam-o-matic" ak's and SHTF AR's LMAO!

The end is nigh....

So hopefully I can tell a little story here.

So back in 95 I joined the Marine Corps and got introduced to the M16a2 and various other firearms. The general consensus is that the m16 was not very reliable. We all would experience failures even after maintaining the weapons and we all drooled over the Aussie Marines Steyr AUGs, SIG 550 series, AK variants, HK 53s, FALs, etc... etc... Now, we weren't aware that our mags were probably crap, extractor springs  old and weak, etc... etc... but still, I don't think until the advent of the hk416 magazine and its anti-tilt follower, you know the same kind of follower on an AK-47 since.....47, did the AR start to be seen as something utterly dependable such as it is now.

Now lets go back to the AK. AKs ran. Nobody thought that they were all that accurate, but we figure we can hit stuff at 300 yards with it, and it will run and run. And this was true. Back in those days you had crap loads of military factory build AKs Chinese, Romanian, Egyptian Maadis (which everyone hated but admitted they ran, kind of like the WASR today) Hungarians, etc... etc... untampered at first, then sporterised and converted later. All for a third of the price of a Colt. Then we started to get stuff like Saigas, Veprs, Yugos, Arsenals. Veprs converted for $550. Ammo was half the price it is today (which is not bad right now) and mags for the 5.45 were plentiful and not stupid expensive like you see today. Like tapco prices.
Custom made rifles would cost you $700-$800 from guys like Chris Buttler and Krebs because the parts kits costed less than three circle 10 mags today.

These AKs were not only reliable, but very accurate (not AR really good barrel accurate but 2 moa and lower, especially from the VEPRs ) and cheap all around.

Now the AR I finally started to trust after getting to know it much better, and the 416 mags, which led to the development of all the AR wonder mags including MAGPUL, who none other than Grant from G&R tactical introduced me to. I still think anything green follower and before is shit and would not trust it and did not deployed.
Saw too much See-Sawing with those mags. Its absurd how long it took to unF!@$ that mistake.

So now we have a side from WASRs, more expensive AKs(and those are twice the price they used to be!). I mean is it from the trade sanctions, the advent of the EU, various other social-economic, political developments, whatever... AKs are starting to price themselves out of the market.
I can get a colt 6920 for around $800 with MAGPUL furniture on it. I can get a milspec rifle from PSA for $600. These will shoot around 1.5 MOA and be plenty reliable. As balls out reliable as an AK? Not quite, but aside from having to low crawl through a recently drained swamp or continued exposure to silt like Baghdad sand without being able to clean the rifle for days, its of no consequence. Not to mention ergonomics are much better on the AR and the stock sights are worlds better than the AK, etc... etc...
The equivalent to this would be the Arsenal, Bulgarian or Izmash. WASRs are reliable but they arent quite as nice as the Bulgarian or Rus, or Serb rifles (but don't by an NPAP they are not up to the quality of the o-paps or m70s unfortunately)
The Arsenal Bulgaria's float around $900-$1000. You could get a nicely customized AR for that much nowadays. Not to mention, newly manufactured mags are cheaper in the more modern calibers by far. The com block steel mags are readily available in 7.62 however. New production mags will be more expensive, especially circle 10 waffle mags. Ridiculous prices thanks to Arsenal. Not to mention there will be a dry spell thanks to the created chaos in the middle east of the SLR-107s. Guess what thats going to do to prices?

As far as reliability goes, youve heard me mentioning the AK always being stronger than the AR only recently closing the gap. Well thats the truth. The shoddy reliability of AKs you hear of are not factory built AKs. They are parts kit builds by either people who are incompetent, or who are using certain parts for 922 compliance and are woefully out of spec, or are just trying to build their own with parts that are out of spec like century who can be called out for all of the above. Because of all the sanctions and parts kits being depleted, prices are being driven up and builds done by guys who skimp on parts and time to get a lower price point in. Guys like Krebs, Buttler, Gunplumber of ARS, Rifle Dynamics, etc.... don't do this and thats why their shit works.  Century who bought WASRs for $9 and were selling them for $200 something dollars only cares about making a buck. That's why their homemade rifle is a POS. They skimp on proper manufacturing of parts and the result is a weapon that isn't safe to fire after a thousand or so rounds. And as scary as this is, thats better than IO Arms.

So if I were to go back to the silly place, or a new silly place and I had my choice of firearm, Id pick a Colt, BCM, or DD AR. Im just more familiar with it and I use it better. I trust it too. If you issued me a Bulgarian AK-74, Id probably be just fine with it.

Right now I can only afford one rifle. Its probably going to be an AK. Why? Its a lot more fun to shoot. Not sure why that is, but it seems to be a general consensus.

I hope this helps.

BB

There are crap AKs & ARs and there are high quality AKs & ARs. Surround yourself with the latter. There is no sane reason not to have both.

That's not fair, your comparing 70's 7n6 to otm 77gr black hills and stuff? Lol. You should see what modern Russian ammo does.

They are two completely different weapons from design to its use, anyone comparing them against each other is wasting a lot of time with no end result being credible.

You should buy at least one of each.

If you just don't like AKs, I'll suggest you review history, especially Vietnam and the Middle East, on how your plastic POS toy performed against those cheap parts, canted sights, and alleged optic issues. Yes, I know, don't tell me, as long as you thoroughly clean your AR before, during, and after a firefight, it functions just fine......

Cheers

Btw, the thread should be locked, better yet deleted....

Derp

Both guns are reliable and plenty combat accurate. Prices are comparable for the guns, mags, and ammo alike. Both have plenty of modernized furniture, stock, and optic options if you want to go that route. For a general carbine role, seriously just pick whichever feels right to you - or, preferably, both. The real differences come down to the details.

Have multiples in different configurations of both.  Then there is no versus and problem solved.

He means we can't get 7n10, 7n22 etc here in the US.  The Russians didn't just sit back with 7n6, they updated it many times over. I don't know where any performance data can be found on the unobtainium loads.

This may come as a surprise being a AR15 forum, but AR15 hands down.

Why? Modularity. The AR is just a more refined and modular and thus capable design than the AK.  Ak's were good, when they were $300, but since a "good" AK has crept up to the prices they are at, IMO other than cheap ammo. I see no reason to even look at them unless you just want a single Ak for a .mil inspired collection.

I have a couple AK's but prefer shooting my AR's. Even bought a 5.45mm AR so I can shoot the cheap surplus ammo with a scoped rifle.

I like the ruggedness of the AK.  I own a couple of Saiga Conversions...   (Da to Russian AK! is Best AK!!  Build like Stalin Tank!!   - Nyet!!! to IO or other Running Dogs of Crapitalism.... )

However, in my experience, the AR has advantages of:
(a) Accuracy - Average AR will outshoot an AK due to better sights, better optic mount and better trigger, not to mention the design of the AR which lends itself to better accuracy (ever try to free float an AK?
(b) Ergonomics - No question.  Safety location and operation, mag changes are quicker with less fumble, bolt hold open and quick release.  better trigger
(c) Accessability - .223 / 5.56 ammo is everywhere.  7.62 x 39 if often found, 5.45x39 not often found.    AR mags are everywhere and affordable.  7.62 AK mags (Com Bloc) are awesome, but getting expensive.   5.45 AK mags prices have gotten stupid....
(d)  Customizability - AR is like Legos for Men.  You can alter you gun with just simple hand tools in all different ways.  AK, not so much.  AR parts are all over every gun store and even retailers Academy & Wal-Mart.   AK, not so much.

If an AK is what you want, go for it.  Both will do the job within their range limitations 0-300 meters for man sized target is do-able as proven in action for many decades now...

If doesn't matter your "Thing" is for Red Heads, Blondes or Brunettes,...   In America, if it makes you happy then more power to you!  

oh really  ,


 

Get both.

Arsenal SAM7R

Colt LE6920

I like them both, but due to price increase of the AK world, and prices of ARs falling through the floor, all of my future black rifle acquisitions are likely to be ARs.

The only AKs left that I have interest in picking up are of the 5.56 flavor, specifically an M90NP or SLR106UR

I have been shooting AKs for so long that they feel like a well worn-in pair of jeans to me, and I have absolutely zero issues with the AK ergonomics, sights, controls, or mag changes. Every bit of it feels natural to me, but I can imagine people coming from the AR world finding the whole system to be gross and overly mechanical..

Own both

But we should stop comparing the two, instead compare the AK-74 to the AR-15, just because of caliber

AK-74's will go a lot further than 300M